Herefordshire Headway Improving Life After Brain Injury

Our Members Stories

Living the Dream by Doug Webb, Member

I was reading the newspaper the other day when I noticed the date— I realised it was the anniversary of the day I had suffered my stroke, some 10 years ago.

I had lost my health, my sight, my wife, my home and my working days were a thing of the past. I could no longer drive and I was living in a small flat feeling lonely and desperately unhappy. I attended the day centres and worked on coming to terms with the fact that my life was over. However, I got involved with every activity on offer, anything to try and break the monotony. There were weekly visits to the local leisure pool and this is where I met a lovely nurse called Jane, who I eventually married.

I didn't think it was possible but I started to live again, I had a future to look forward to. I wrote a Wish List; Shopping in Sainsbury's and visiting the Kingfisher Shopping Centre in Redditch were just two wishes, fairly mundane by normal standards. But, at the top of the list was to travel by train through the Canadian Rockies, perhaps more a dream than a wish.

Well, 9 years later in 2011, I was LIVING MY DREAM and here are the pictures to prove it!!